


in this quiet place, i can give you all my time

by nutellamuffin



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Because I want it, Classical Music, Cooking, Data's Emotion Chip (Star Trek), Domestic Fluff, Feels, Husbands, Married Couple, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Data (Star Trek), Panic, Reunions, Song: Sunkissed (Khai Dreams), Songfic, Sort Of, Space Husbands, and geordi hates to see them so sad, and that also makes them sad, but yk star trek’s classical music, data is just sad and misses geordi and doesn’t understand how songs make them feel, geordi writes songs, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29794317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutellamuffin/pseuds/nutellamuffin
Summary: data missed geordi, so much so that it hurt. only, it’s never hurt before.or, geordi puts data back together in more ways than one.
Relationships: Data/Geordi La Forge
Kudos: 17





	in this quiet place, i can give you all my time

**Author's Note:**

> okay i’m super eh on how this turned out, it was supposed to be a cute coming home fic, and i dont really know what it turned into or how i feel about it but its been sitting in my drafts forever and so i might as well give it to you.  
> also, where i lose punctuation and run on in my sentences, that’s supposed to be read as data’s thought process speeding up, sort of like them panicking  
> title and lyrics are from sunkissed by khai dreams

_ (so slowly a sunlit dream pulls me out of sleep, feel the morning through the blinds.) _ data had never been one for classical music, but they supposed they could give it a try. which is how they got here, their foot tapping absently as they stirred in the vegetables of their  _ étouffee. _

this song was . . . pretty. they supposed that was the only appropriate way to describe it. the soft ukulele was a nice break from all the usual tones in classical music, with the loud bass and the persistent backbeat. this song sounded like sand between your toes and wind in your hair. it sounded like something geordi would write. (only geordi’s songs usually involved synth.)

data didn’t know where geordi was. well, they did. what they didn’t know was when geordi was coming home. data didn’t know a lot of things, they found, when it came to themself. 

for example, they didn’t know why they were cooking when they didn’t need to eat. they didn’t know why they were playing classical music when they had never liked it before. they didn’t know what the feeling they got in their chest meant, when the song said  _ you know i want to be your rock, my love, you know i want to be your light. _ they didn’t know why they were having a hard time looking at the ring on their left hand.

perhaps it was because even though they didn’t have to eat, geordi had to, and perfecting recipes came from trial and error and not from a content transfer of a cookbook; because the song reminded them of geordi in any way that mattered and it was astounding that someone from hundreds of years ago could say it so perfectly; or perhaps it was because they didn’t know when geordi was coming home, but they knew how long he had been gone.

_ (it’s all like magic to me, you do magic, baby.) _

and they couldn’t have heard the front door close, no. that must have been the song. the footsteps must be the song, too. only it wasn’t the song, and they knew it, despite not knowing why they were lying to themself.

“you’ve never been into classical.”

surely their emotion chip must be malfunctioning, because something in their chest gave a little jolt where they were sure their heart should be. but something else kept them where they were standing, stirring the  _ étouffee, _ listening to the catchy backbeat of the song.

“i wished to experiment.”

data could hear the scrape of the chair against the floor tile as geordi sat down at the kitchen island, and the music echoing throughout the room filled the empty spaces in their conversation, wrapping data in a comfort blanket that they wished was geordi’s arms. they left the pot to simmer- or boil, or something, their memory banks were cloudy as they tried to remember the recipe. no, not cloudy. distracted.

data went to sit beside geordi as if they were on autopilot, and in the background, the radio panel cooed,  _ when you love me, it’s so lovely loving you. _

it was quiet. the music faded out gently, the ukulele disappearing, the wind-in-your-hair, sand-between-your-toes feeling dissipating through data’s fingertips, slipping away. there was an empty space between where their ribcage should have been. slowly, they inched their arm towards geordi’s, because he felt like a stranger and that wasn’t right. that was never right. data had stopped feeling a barrier between themself and humanity a long time ago, and yet, even before the barrier was broken, geordi never felt like a stranger. it was rooted in data’s code.

geordi took data’s hand like it was second nature and the world around them got a brighter pop of colour. geordi was warm and comforting just from a single touch and geordi was home in more ways than one and geordi, data realized all over again, was the feeling in their chest when a song spoke truer words than they could think of.

“hi,” he said quietly, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a half-smile, and data inched their chair closer.

“hello,” they replied, softer, their forehead pressed against their husband’s, coming home just as he was.

geordi’s arm made its way around data’s middle, and somewhere in between them, he held their interlocked hands to his chest. data could feel the heartbeat that they loved even though it wasn’t theirs, and they didn’t mind the way that geordi’s VISOR pressed gently against their forehead, either. they could get used to this. they  _ were _ used to this. they were home.

“i have missed you, geordi.” a whisper. not a secret.

“i know. i’m sorry.” not a secret, either. but something that needed to be heard.

data’s eyebrows furrowed at that, and they still did not move from geordi’s arms, glancing down at their hands fleetingly before searching his face once more, “you do not have to apologize to me.”

“i know i don’t  _ have _ to. but i want to. i . . .” geordi trailed off for a moment, his jaw setting, exhaling through his nose in what could have been a sigh before adding, “data, you know i miss you, don’t you?”

that made data still. stiller than they had been. after a long moment, they spoke again, unsure, “well, i . . . yes, geordi. i am aware.”

that made geordi pull away from them. that empty feeling echoed in their chest once more at the loss. they still didn’t understand it, and they didn’t understand what they had said wrong. they didn’t understand what they were feeling or why geordi was making sure they knew he missed them, or why that song was still stuck in their head and was pulling at their heartstrings or maybe their wires or  _ something _ and for someone who was supposed to know everything, data was currently stuck in such a state of not-knowing and they only thing they knew for certain was geordi being home.

“geordi-”

“no, data. listen.” geordi’s tone was insisting, but gentle. he brushed his thumb across data’s cheek, and they fell silent, the rushing, bubbling feeling disappearing. not nearly fast enough. geordi went on, his arm still secured around them, grounding them to the kitchen island. “you know i want to be home, right? i don’t miss you just because i’m supposed to miss you. i miss you because i love you.”

he said the words so naturally, like water over rocks. data supposed that was what truth meant.

“and you’re allowed to miss me, too.” his voice was so much softer than it had been moments prior. it made data yearn for something that they didn’t have a name for.

it made sense. it made so much sense, and yet, it wasn’t computing, somehow. there was a wall between geordi’s words and the way data understood things and they must have turned geordi’s sentence over six thousand times trying to figure it out.

“i  _ did _ miss you, geordi.”

“you’re allowed to miss me just because you love me, data. you don’t have to have a reason.”

and suddenly, it clicked.

suddenly, the feeling in their chest had a name, and the way the song resonated with them did, too. they had a name for their yearning and a name for the empty space between where their ribcage should be and knew what was pulling at their heart when they didn’t have one at all.

“i love you, too, geordi.”

geordi smiled, and they were home.

**Author's Note:**

> and yes i KNOW data would probably be on the same mission as geordi but i dont want to HEAR it okay theyre MARRIED and DOMESTIC and im ignoring all 385729 of my wips for space husbands  
> my mom used to make me étouffee all the time so i guess that came through while writing it. there’s no real reason data chose that dish specifically. and that’s on what? self projection


End file.
